Former 12-year NBA vet drops one of the worst takes yet on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

Over the course of the past few seasons, OKC Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has found himself on the receiving end of a slew of slanderous and, frankly, unfounded allegations.

From his ridiculous long-range shooting abilities to being labeled a free-throw shooter, the 26-year-old has taken a fair amount of heat for things that he has not only managed to dispel with his play on the court, but may not have been true to begin with.

But of all the questionable and deplorable judgments that have been made about SGA’s play, this week perhaps the worst of them was made by former 12-year NBA veteran, Nick Young.

IN a scathing post on his personal X account, the 2018 NBA champion went on a tirade criticizing the current state of the league’s MVP race, specifically noting “a guy like Jason Tatum could never win” because, in his eyes, the Celtics regularly blow their opponents out. on a nightly basis, forcing the forward to sit in the fourth quarter and subsequently limiting his per-game average.

Now, while there are many things that could be challenged about Young’s claims, perhaps the most egregious is when he said in his post “teams like OKC have to keep Shai in the game for a beat out to get his numbers.”

This is arguably one of the most baseless moves yet when it comes to the Thunder cornerstone.

Nick Young makes a truly creepy claim about the OKC Thunder star

Here the logic just doesn’t seem to be logical.

Young suggests that Tatum, the sixth-leading scorer in the entire league at 27.5 points per game. night, would average even better in this department if Boston were in closer games on a nightly basis, and as a result saw more action in the fourth quarter. . On top of this, he seems to have hinted that Gilgeous-Alexander has run more than the C-star in the final periods of 2024-25.

Maybe the NBA veteran doesn’t realize this, but Google is actually free, and so is the NBA’s statistical database.

Had he known this, Young could have easily saved himself from such an embarrassing assessment by looking up how Tatum has actually played in more fourth quarters (33) than the Thunder guard (31) this year, and despite his has recorded approximately 20 minutes more in total. in the said quarters he trails Gilgeous-Alexander in points with 13.

With that, Boston has found itself in close-call contests more often than Oklahoma City has this season, as evidenced by their plus-minus rating (+413 compared to +538) and the sheer fact that they’ve seen less 15+ point wins (14 against 20).

What makes this move even more nonsensical is that SGA boasts the lowest minutes per game. game average among the 12 best scorers in the association and ranks as low as 35 overall in this department with 34.1. To put this into perspective, Tatum ranks 10th at 36.3 per. game.

Despite this, the Thunder stud ranks number one in points per game at 31.5 per night.

To say Nick Young’s bid for the MVP race, and more specifically, with Jayson Tatum battling someone like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the pecking order, was based primarily on emotion rather than logic, would be a huge understatement.